Individuals who work in certain occupations need to have relatively sterile hands. In, for example, food service operations, doctors' offices or dentists' offices, employees must ensure that certain microorganisms are not present on their hands. Activities such as going to the bathroom or handling certain products such as raw meat, particularly chicken, can contaminate the hands with these microorganisms.
The first step to overcome this problem is of course washing the hands. But this is frequently inadequate. In order to kill certain microorganisms, the hand washing solution must be relatively severe, or the hand washing must be extremely thorough. Even so, such a washing operation may not be effective to kill all microorganisms.
Using more severe disinfectants such as alcohol solutions and the like may be more effective, but they are simply too harsh on the skin. Further, they may be relatively dangerous.